Organizations such as on-line retailers, Internet service providers, search providers, financial institutions, universities, and other computing-intensive organizations often conduct computer operations from large scale computing facilities. Such computing facilities house and accommodate a large amount of server, network, and computer equipment to process, store, and exchange data as needed to carry out an organization's operations. Typically, a computer room of a computing facility includes many computing racks, which may include server racks. Each computing rack, in turn, may include many computer systems, servers, associated computer equipment, etc.
Because the computer room of a computing facility may contain a large number of servers, a large amount of electrical power may be required to operate the facility. In addition, the electrical power is distributed to a large number of locations spread throughout the computer room (e.g., many racks spaced from one another, and many servers in each rack). A network of cabling, bus bars, tap boxes, power connectors, and power distribution units (PDUs), is used to deliver the power to numerous specific components in the facility. Circuit breakers mounted in tap boxes protect sets of components in the facility from potential damage caused by overload and short circuits.
Typically, one or more busways extend the length of an aisle of computing racks in a computer room. Tap boxes are coupled to a busway at separate locations along a length of the busway extending along the aisle of computing racks. Power connectors couple tap boxes to PDUs that distribute electrical power to one or more computing racks. An open or malfunctioning circuit breaker mounted in a tap box can cause computing racks receiving electrical power from one or more PDUs coupled to the specific tap box to lose power. Due to the interconnected nature of some data centers, a loss of one or more rack computing systems can affect the overall operation of the data center and impact the data center's ability to meet customer demands.
While embodiments are described herein by way of example for several embodiments and illustrative drawings, those skilled in the art will recognize that embodiments are not limited to the embodiments or drawings described. It should be understood, that the drawings and detailed description thereto are not intended to limit embodiments to the particular form disclosed, but on the contrary, the intention is to cover all modifications, equivalents and alternatives falling within the spirit and scope as defined by the appended claims. The headings used herein are for organizational purposes only and are not meant to be used to limit the scope of the description or the claims. As used throughout this application, the word “may” is used in a permissive sense (i.e., meaning having the potential to), rather than the mandatory sense (i.e., meaning must). Similarly, the words “include,” “including,” and “includes” mean including, but not limited to.